


Conversations

by finangler



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Hannigram Secret Santa Exchange, M/M, Passive-aggression, Post-Savoureux, Prison
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-30
Updated: 2013-11-30
Packaged: 2018-01-03 01:55:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1064326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/finangler/pseuds/finangler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I have missed our conversations, Will."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Conversations

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ebyru](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ebyru/gifts).



> Fill for Hannigram Secret Santa Exchange, for the prompt:
> 
> Hannibal realizes how lonely it is with Will inside; also, he likes the way his eyes turn black when Hannibal secretly visits. They develop a verbal code for insulting, and later, to flirt and say explicit things without guards knowing. [set after finale]
> 
> Hope you, enjoy!

When Will was a child, he’d been described, often and continually enough by well-meaning and supervisory adults, as “an odd little kid.” The phrase had been thrown in with other, less judgmental terms: sensitive, quiet, solitary, and moody. But these were inoffensive words used to disguise an unpleasant truth, like expensive window dressings exquisitely hung to distract from an unpleasant view: that Will Graham was, in every particular, a freak.

It was a state of affairs that had continued all through Will’s life. As a child, it had been a hard road, watching and evaluating, testing and adapting to the other children’s behavior: gauging how a too-accurate comment to one of the children one day would lead to an awkward meeting involving a teacher and his father the next. Will learned to see the horrified confusion on a fellow officer’s face as he said something he shouldn’t know, or shouldn’t think, and understand that, this time, he had quested too far from the accepted path of social interaction. These were the realities of Will’s life; what was so easy for everybody else was fraught with strain and missteps for Will. One would have thought his “gift” would have made it easier: an advantage of insight and evaluation that should have guided him in these conversational minefields. By all rights, he should have been able to navigate any social situation presented to him. And yet, here he was: Will Graham.

One of the few advantages to being locked up in a mental facility—and there were very, very few—was the comfort that he could take in no longer being the most unusual man in the room. 

And one of the few advantages to his fraught and tense childhood was that it taught him to think on his feet, to evaluate. To never be complacent. He had felt bitterness about it before, but now he was grateful for the training.

He was going to need it.

*

“Visitor, Graham.” Will looked up in surprise when Barney announced it while collecting Will’s half-finished lunch tray. Will didn’t get many visitors these days. Chilton was so regular a nuisance that the word “visitor” could not be applied to him. Will was also often evaluated by nurses and guards, but, beyond cursory questions about his mental and physical state, they didn’t really interact with Will. He liked it that way.

Jack had not come to visit him in some time. His initial attempts to jog Will’s memories and elicit confessions had been met with empty silences and glazed eyes, not always due to the influence of psychotropics. Will could tell Jack felt conflicted between his duty to his job and his perceived failure to Will. Alana visited often at first, coming with updates on his dogs, and on his case, and on ideas for his defense. It had been soothing at first, and then awful, once Will realized that, of all of them, Alana believed most of all that Will was guilty. It became apparent that her visits were as much penance for some perceived failure of perception regarding Will’s steady unraveling, as they were meant to bolster Will’s flagging spirits. 

Otherwise, Will’s days passed in blurred hazes of drugs, sessions, and memories. He had become a master at parsing his feelings and memories these days. Which was why it came as such a surprise that, as Hannibal—no, Doctor Lecter—was escorted to the opposite side of the glass and bars of Will’s cell, Will couldn’t decide how to feel.

“Hello, Will,” Lecter greeted, his face somehow managing to convey deepest sorrow and compassionate professionalism in equal measure. Will knew both of these to be equally false.

“Dr. Lecter.” Lecter’s mouth quirked barely downwards at the coldness in Will’s tone. Silence stretched between them like oceans between shores, tumultuous and treacherous with hidden depths. Lecter took the silence as opportunity to settle himself on the metal folding chair helpfully set down by Barney. Lecter managed to make it look no less regal than any of the exquisite antiques in his home, as comfortable on it as a king on his throne.

And why shouldn’t he? He was certainly as deservedly triumphant as any conqueror.

“What brings you to my cell, Doctor?” That the fine details of Lecter’s plaid suit became sharper in focus was the only clue that Will had moved close to the door of his cell, for Will certainly had no memory of doing it. Will could, even without his confiscated glasses, crisply see the curve of Lecter’s upper lip, the grain of his hair, and the slight wrinkling around his eyes. 

“I wanted to see how you were doing, Will. Dr. Chilton contacted me recently. He is concerned about you.”

“Yes, I know. I’ve felt the depths of his…concern.” Straps and feeding tubes, IV’s and sleep deprivation. These were the tools of Chilton’s concern.

“I’m concerned about you, too, Will.” White hot blinding rage overtook Will’s vision at Lecter’s utter _gall._

“I’m sure.”

Lecter met Will’s eyes. Will had often, in their private moments, marveled that a man who could hold himself so preternaturally still could have such motion in his eyes. They were just as mobile now, almost black with triumph and amusement. But there was something else, lurking underneath everything, like rocks hidden amongst tranquil shoals. Will couldn’t pinpoint its origins or its depths.

“And so Chilton thought that you visiting me would ease your concerns about me?”

“I know that in the past, our…conversations have been helpful to you. I was hoping that, although the circumstances are different, they might be helpful again.” Lecter’s eyes held Will’s again, magnets calling each other home.

*

_“So, does this count as a conversation?” Will asks, voice breaking as uneven teeth latch onto his neck, sucking lightly. “Or is this a form of unconventional therapy?” Big, rough hands continue their downward slide along his lower abs and into the depths of his pants, seconds later grasping his cock. Will mewls embarrassingly. His gaze darts to the red and white window treatments of Hannibal’s office. He’s surprised that the evening has ended this way. And then, surprised at his own surprise. If there’s one thing Will should have picked up on easily, it should have been this. Hannibal’s supercilious effeteness and sartorial choices aside, the signs were all there in their words and interactions. Will feels momentarily betrayed by his own empathy; he’s become so used to understanding the feelings of others, that he’s become blind to those that try to understand his own._

_“I would say that this definitely falls far outside the realm of therapy, and strictly under the category of conversation,” Hannibal answers against his ear. The damp of his tongue and the wind of his breath against his ear remind Will ludicrously of the sea. It’s incredibly unfair that Hannibal can be so dexterous and so aroused at the same time: an amazing coordination of will and control that Will has never had, but has always envied. Will takes a moment to wonder just what other feats of control Hannibal is capable of in his private moments._

_Later that night, as Hannibal’s thighs piston his cock against Will’s with amazing strength, sweat falling out of his disheveled hair and off his furled brow into Will’s own face, lips curled back in an almost animalistic snarl, Will thinks that he better understands what Hannibal is capable of._

_Will hadn’t understood a thing._

*

“Not exactly the proper setting for one of our conversations, don’t you think?” Will uncurled his fingers from his fist. Tells and tics could no longer be afforded. “Why, anybody could overhear. Privacy isn’t exactly a luxury I can afford, anymore.”

“This, I see. It grieves me, Will. My office is not the same without you anymore.”

*

_Will’s fingers ache as he grips the back of Hannibal’s oblong fainting couch-like thing. “It’s called a chaise, Will,” Hannibal will later chuckle into his cheek. Now, he’s pushing into Will with all the finely reined power of a jungle cat. It burns and, despite Hannibal’s medically specific preparation, the friction is hurting. Then, Hannibal hits his prostate with an accuracy that surprises and overpowers Will. He should not be so surprised; Hannibal is a surgeon first and anatomy is his specialty._

*

“I bet,” Will snorted. “I imagine I was quite unique amongst your patients.” Will hoped so, at least. For more reasons than he cared to admit.

“The most singular, Will. Never doubt that.” Lecter shifted slightly, crossing his legs as usual. Will allowed himself a small smirk. _Control that, you fucker,_ he thinks.

“So, what do you hope to accomplish by visiting me here? Providing the balm of your company?”

“I had hoped to see how you were holding up. Offer encouragement and advice. Much like I used to. There was a time when you valued my opinion, when it helped you to see things more clearly.”

“Not clearly enough.” Their eyes were still locked, and Will couldn’t imagine that they were fooling anybody. Lecter’s mouth quirked again, laterally, rather than up or down, making the gesture as pointless and inscrutable as his words.

“I admit that I failed you, Will. I had thought that I was helping you control your gift. I did not see until too late that I was only ignoring the inevitable. I had such hopes for you, Will.”

“I bet you did.”

*

_Will feels awkward the first morning he wakes up at Hannibal’s house. Well, more awkward than usual. He meanders amongst Hannibal’s affluence, feeling not too dissimilar to Winston when he has been rolling amongst the hard-packed mud surrounding Will’s house and has now proceeded to track it everywhere in drips and drabs. Will searches his mind for some morning- after conversation that won’t sound needy or gauche. Hannibal hands him a cup of no doubt gourmet coffee. Will feels relieved as Hannibal’s hand deliberately lingers on his. Hannibal’s mouth quirks to reveal snaggleteeth as his hair falls forward to caress his browbone. He looks handsome, in a way that Will has never found men handsome before. Will feels on the precipice of something hopeful. He hasn’t felt hopeful in a long time. He certainly hasn’t felt it since he woke up barefoot and shivering, miles from his home with a police officer’s flashlight in his face._

_But this…this has the feel of something stable and permanent. Will feels as though he has gazed upon his house, alit in the night from across a sea of fog and grass. Will can barely get himself dressed in the morning on his worst days, but this, he thinks, he can do._

*

In his bitterer moments, Will would have almost chalked it up to divine tragedy: a man, given every advantage, managing to make nothing from it. It was hard to decide which was more pathetic: a gifted, tragic hero who brought about his own destruction through his own actions; or a gifted, tragic hero who let destruction be inflicted upon him through his own lack of action.

For all that Will looked back on those times, he still found himself unable to find the proper perspective on their interactions. Had Hannibal fucked his body as a tool to fuck with his head, or had Hannibal fucked with his head in order to fuck his body?

“By the tone of your voice, you seem to be implying some sinister motives to those hopes. I’m sorry to hear that.” And he was, Will was surprised to realize. He was startled as much by the presence of Lecter’s regret, as he was by his own perception of it. All these days, languishing amongst stone and artificial light, Will had adopted the belief that he had been well and truly outmaneuvered by a man who had taken advantage of his own blindness. It had never occurred to Will that that blindness did not necessarily have to be permanent. It had never occurred to Will that he had had, all along, the advantage. 

Liars, after all, were the ones who must hide from the truth-seekers, not the other way around.

“Alana tells me that they still haven’t found Abigail’s body, yet,” Will replied. “I can’t imagine what her killer would have had to do to her body to keep it from being found. It must have been…gruesome.” Lecter looked away, just for a second, but Will felt his own triumph flare like a fire.

*

_“I’m not so sure this is a good idea.” Will fidgets with the cuff of his corduroy jacket—his best, as it happens. Hannibal’s soft hand covers his own, stilling his movement. “Alana says that this might not be helpful.” Will looks at Hannibal across the armrest dividing them in Hannibal’s plush, luxurious car._

_“In this case, I will have to respectfully disagree with the redoubtable Dr. Bloom; Abigail is stronger than she looks. And I can only imagine that engaging in activities that remind her of normal life can only be of benefit. Come.” Hannibal smiles at him, and they exit the car and begin the arduous process of signing into the facility to get visitor’s passes._

_Abigail’s room is as falsely cheerful as ever, with nothing that represents her sporty and delicate strength. She looks up at their entrance, and her smile upon seeing Hannibal is joyful. She turns a softer, less luminous smile upon Will. Will knows that Abigail feels a stronger attachment to Hannibal than she does to himself. He’s envious, but he understands. He is her father’s killer, after all._

_“We have come to distract you today, Abigail. I’ve taken the liberty of preparing a picnic for the three of us. We cannot leave the grounds, I’m afraid, but Will has intervened on your behalf to suggest some dishes more to a modern young lady’s liking.” Abigail flashes a grateful smile to Will, and Will luxuriates in it. Their relationship is not quite what Will wants yet, but there is groundwork for it._

_“And,” Hannibal continues, placing a deliberate hand on the small of Will’s back, “we have news for you.”_

_Abigail’s smile blossoms to radiance, and the part of Will that will always be Garrett Jacob Hobbs, is sated._

*

Will smiled. He could feel only the slow stretch of muscles that indicated a smile, initially; he was not so recovered of strength to feel satisfaction or joy, yet. But it was coming. He felt it, deep in his chest, pushing through the scream in his chin.

At the mention of Abigail’s name, Lecter’s eyes went dark red, like a beast from some dark mythology. Rage broiled under the surface of his skin, invisible to anybody who hadn’t fucked him, or loved him. Invisible to anybody who hadn’t spent the years of their life navigating the emotions of others, taking none of them for granted.

Invisible to anybody who wasn’t Will Graham.

_I’ve got you, fucker,_ he thinks. _You fucked with my body and my mind, but you wanted both. And you wanted Abigail, too. You loved her, and I made you kill her. You wanted a family. A sick, twisted perversion of a family, but you wanted it, nonetheless. And that’s how I’ll get you. Somehow._

It took only seconds for Lecter to get his emotions under control, betraying the slip with a mere crack and twist of his neck. He stood up, slowly and deliberately, as if the slip of time would stop just for him merely because he wished it. A careful brush of his pants and straightening of his tie and Lecter is suddenly inches from Will. It feels foreign, for all their shared intimacies.

“I see that you are feeling better, Will. You seem invigorated. Perhaps, I am still of use to you after all.”

Will let the silence stretch; loved that Lecter helplessly waited it out.

“Perhaps,” he conceded.

“Well, I see we shall have to ensure that our conversations continue.”

Lecter turned on his heels and slowly glided out, and for the first time in a long while, Will Graham sat on his narrow, execrable bunk with hope kindled. 

And planned.


End file.
